BeOS, the PC operating system that tried to challenge Windows and Mac | Hacker News Reader

BeOS, the PC operating system that tried to challenge Windows and Mac

neowin.net

8 pointsrmason6 comments

You got a FOSS version at: https://www.haiku-os.org/

A rewrite like ReactOS is a rewrite of Windows XP/2003.

Haiku has by now surpassed BeOS in style and substance. It's actually a fairly usable OS at this point, thanks to the addition of some Linux drivers and the porting of WebKit. I'd call it suitable for kids or grandparents. No virus worries there.

They naively tried to challenge Windows and Mac by merely being superior technically. Kind of like OS/2 and OS/2 Warp, though OS/2 had half-hearted support from Microsoft at the time.

Heh: https://www.arcanoae.com/arcaos/

BeOS in my mind was never a PC OS. It might have been a personal computer OS for some, but the hardware was expensive and rare.

> Be Incorporated ended the development of the BeBox developer PCs in 1997 and concentrated on improving the BeOS. Later versions were made to work with Intel's x86 processors, and in 2000, the release of BeOS 5 supported booting the OS from within Microsoft's Windows.

The "BeBox developer PCs" were PowerPC, so not your typical 'PC'. Maybe I'm just old and pedantic, but I still don't call Mac's PCs.

It seems that the Be folk were too idealistic rather than scrappy like a startup. If they'd made MVP hardware+software for a niche industry they could have continued iterating making better releases of both hw/sw. NeXT did have a killer app in Lotus Improv or Quantrix.

It was fairly clear at the time that the main business plan for Be was "get good enough on Power PC so that Apple acquires us to retire System 9 and move to a decent OS". All ex-Apple people, Apple H/W stack, etc. It was a decent plan, only Apple chose to buy NeXT instead, which also came with Steve Jobs, not Jean Louis Gassee --and was a better OS as well. Worked out for them.

> In 1996, Be Incorporated got a major opportunity. They had a chance to sell the company and BeOS to Apple, which at the time was looking to replace its old Mac OS. However, according to Welcome to Low End Mac, Be Incorporated was looking to sell the company for $300 million.

Be had their chance to sell to Apple, but was asking for too much and ended up selling for far less.

> In September 2003, The New York Times reported that Microsoft and Be Incorporated settled this case. Microsoft agreed to pay $23.3 million to the company but did not admit to any wrongdoing.

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